Chapter 9 Summary

This chapter starts with the narrator having tea with Dr. Mitra and telling him Nitin's story. He asks the doctor if possession actually occurs, and the doctor responds that it may not be possession as much as a person who is being pulled in two directions at once.

Dr. Mitra tells the narrator that Narmada means "whore" in Sanskrit and the narrator is offended at that because, to many people, the Narmada River is a cleansing river that is sought for its goodness. Dr. Mitra says that the narrator is catching the "Indian disease of making everything holy." Dr. Mitra then explains how the pre-Aryans and the Aryans battled at this site and the Aryans had been granted immortality. One of these Immortals then went to sleep on the bank of the Narmada and rests there still. He says that bandits still visit...